The Dusantes Part 7

Our journey to Chicago was a pleasant one. We had now all become very well acquainted with each other, and there was no discordant element in the combined party. Some of us were a little apprehensive of trouble, or annoyance at least, awaiting us in Chicago, but we did not speak of it; and while Ruth knew nothing of her father's misbehavior, it might have been supposed that the rest had forgotten it.

At Chicago we went at once to Brandiger's Hotel, and there we found, instead of Mr. Enderton, a letter from him to Ruth. It read as follows:

MY DEAR DAUGHTER: I have determined not to wait here, as originally intended, but to go on by myself. I am sorry not to meet you here, but it will not be long before we are together again, and you know I do not like to travel with a party. Its various members always incommode me in one way or another. I had proposed to go to Philadelphia and wait for you there, but have since concluded to stop at Meadowville, a village in the interior of Pennsylvania, where, as they have informed me, the two women, Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne, reside. I wish to see the party all together before I take final leave of them, and I suppose the two women will not consent to go any farther than the country town in which they live. Inclosed is a note to your husband relating to business matters. I hope that he will take the best of care of you during the rest of the journey, and thus very much oblige

YOUR AFFECTIONATE FATHER.

This was my note:

MR. CRAIG. SIR: I should have supposed that you would have been able to prevent the insolent messages which have been telegraphed to me from some members of your party, but it is my lot to be disappointed in those in whom I trust. I shall make no answer to these messages, but will say to you that I am not to be browbeaten in my intention to divide among its rightful claimants the money now in my possession. It is not that I care for the comparatively paltry sum that will fall to myself and my daughter, but it is the principle of the matter for which I am contending. It was due to me that the amount should have been returned to me, and to no other, for me to make the proper division. I therefore rest upon my principles and my rights; and, desiring to avoid needless altercations, shall proceed to Meadowville, where, when the rest of my party arrive, I shall justly apportion the money. I suppose the man Dusante will not be foolish enough to protract his useless journey farther than Chicago. It is your duty to make him see the impropriety of so doing.

Yours, etc., D. J. ENDERTON.

Ruth's letter was shown to all the party, and mine in private to Mr.

Dusante, Mrs. Lecks, and Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne. When the first moments of astonishment were over, Mrs. Lecks exclaimed:

"Well, after all, I don't know that I'm so very sorry that the old sneak has done this, for now we're rid of him for the rest of the trip; an' I'm pretty certain, from the way he writes, that he hasn't dipped into that jar yet. We've skeered him from doin' that."

"But the impidence of him!" said Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne. "Think of his goin' to the very town where we live an' gittin' there fust! He'll be settin'

on that tavern porch with every loafer in the place about him, an'

tellin' 'em the whole story of what happened to us from beginning to end, till by the time we git there it'll be all over the place an' as stale as last week's bread."

"'The man Dusante,'" quietly remarked that individual, "will not abandon the purpose of his journey. He left his island to place in the hands of Mrs. Lecks, on behalf of her party, the ginger-jar with the money inclosed. He will therefore go on with you to Meadowville, and will there make formal demand, and, if necessary, legal requisition, for the possession of that jar and that money; after which he will proceed to carry out his original intentions."

We all expressed our pleasure at having him, with his ladies, as companions for the remainder of our journey, and Mrs. Lecks immediately offered them the hospitalities of her house for as long a time as they might wish to stay with her.

"The weather there," she said, "is often splendid till past Thanksgivin' Day, an' n.o.body could be welcomer than you."

"I'd have asked you myself," said Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne, "if Mrs. Lecks hadn't done it,--which of course she would, bein' alive,--but I'm goin' to have Mr. Craig an' his wife, an' as our houses is near, we'll see each other all the time. An' if Mr. Enderton chooses to stay awhile at the tavern, he can come over to see his daughter whenever he likes. I'll go as fur as that, though no further can I go. I'm not the one to turn anybody from my door, be he heathen, or jus' as bad, or wuss. But tea once, or perhaps twice, is all that I can find it in my heart to offer that man after what he's done."

As the Dusantes and Ruth expressed a desire to see something of Chicago, where they had never been before, we remained in this city for two days, feeling that as Mr. Enderton would await our coming, there was no necessity for haste.

Early in the afternoon of the second day I went into the parlor of the hotel, where I expected to find our party prepared for a sight-seeing excursion; but I found the room tenanted only by Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne, who was sitting with her bonnet and wraps on, ready to start forth. I had said but a few words to her when Mrs. Lecks entered, bonnetless and shawlless, and with her knitting in her hand. She took a seat in a large easy-chair, put on her spectacles, and proceeded to knit.

"Mrs. Lecks!" exclaimed her friend in surprise, "don't you intend goin' out this afternoon?"

"No," said Mrs. Lecks. "I've seen all I want to see, an' I'm goin' to stay in the house an' keep quiet."

"Isn't Mr. Dusante goin' out this afternoon?" asked Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne.

Mrs. Lecks laid her knitting in her lap; then she took off her spectacles, folded them, and placed them beside the ball of yarn; and, turning her chair around, she faced her friend. "Barb'ry Ales.h.i.+ne,"

said she, speaking very deliberately, "has any such a thing got into your mind as that I'm settin' my cap at Mr. Dusante?"

"I don't say you have, an' I don't say you haven't," answered Mrs.

Ales.h.i.+ne, her fat hands folded on her knees, and her round face s.h.i.+ning from under her new bonnet with an expression of hearty good-will, "but this I will say,--an' I don't care who hears it,--that if you was to set your cap at Mr. Dusante there needn't n.o.body say anything agin it, so long as you are content. He isn't what I'd choose for you, if I had the choosin', for I'd git one with an American name an' no islands. But that's neither here nor there, for you're a grown woman an' can do your own choosin'. An' whether there's any choosin'

to be done is your own business too, for it's full eleven years sence you've been done with widder fixin's; an' if Mr. Lecks was to rise up out of his grave this minute, he couldn't put his hand on his heart an' say that you hadn't done your full duty by him, both before an'

after he was laid away. An' so, if you did want to do choosin', an'

made up your mind to set your cap at Mr. Dusante, there's no word to be said. Both of you is ripe-aged an' qualified to know your own minds, an' both of you is well off enough, to all intents an'

purposes, to settle down together, if so inclined. An' as to his sister, I don't expect she will be on his hands for long. An' if you can put up with an adopted mother-in-law, that's your business, not mine; though I allus did say, Mrs. Lecks, that if you'd been 'Piscopalian, you'd been Low Church."

"Is that all?" said Mrs. Lecks.

"Yes," replied the other; "it's all I have to say jus' now, though more might come to me if I gave my mind to it."

"Well, then," said Mrs. Lecks, "I've somethin' to say on this p'int, and I'm very glad Mr. Craig is here to hear it. If I had a feelin' in the direction of Mr. Dusante that he was a man, though not exactly what I might wish, havin' somethin' of foreign manners with ties in the Sandwich Islands, which I shouldn't have had so if I'd had the orderin' of it, who was still a Christian gentleman,--as showed by his acts, not his words,--a lovin' brother; an' a kind an' attentive son by his own adoption; and who would make me a good husband for the rest of our two lives; then I'd go and I'd set my cap at him--not bold nor flauntin', nor unbecomin' to a woman of my age, but just so much settin' of it at him, that if he had any feelin's in my direction, and thought, although it was rather late in life for him to make a change, that if he was goin' to do it he'd rather make that change with a woman who had age enough, and experience enough in downs as well as ups, and in married life as well as single, to make him feel that as he got her so he'd always find her; then I say all he'd have to do would be to come to me an' say what he thought, an' I'd say what I thought, an' the thing would be settled, an' n.o.body in this world need have one word to say, except to wish us joy, an' then go along and attend to their own business.

"But now I say to you, Barb'ry Ales.h.i.+ne, an' just the same to you, Mr.

Craig, that I haven't got no such feelin's in the direction of Mr.

Dusante, an' I don't intend to set my cap at him, an' if he wore such a thing and set it at me, I'd say to him, kind though firm, that he could put it straight again as far as I was concerned; an' that if he chose to set it at any other woman, if the nearest an' dearest friend I have on earth, I'd do what I could to make their married lives as happy as they could be under the circ.u.mstances; and no matter what happened, I wouldn't say one word, though I might think what I pleased. An' now you have it, all straight and plain: if I wanted to set caps, I'd set 'em; and if I didn't want to set 'em, I wouldn't. I don't want to, and I don't."

And, putting on her spectacles, she resumed her knitting.

Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne turned upon her friend a beaming face.

"Mrs. Lecks," she said, "your words has lifted a load from off my mind. It wouldn't ha' broke me down, an' you wouldn't never have knowed I carried it; but it's gone, an' I'm mighty glad of it. An' as for me an' my cap,--an' when you spoke of nearest and dearest friends, you couldn't meant n.o.body but me,--you needn't be afraid. No matter what I was, nor what he was, nor what I thought of him, nor what he thought of me, I couldn't never say to my son when he comes to his mother's arms, all the way from j.a.pan: 'George, here's a Frenchman who I give to you for a father!'"

Here I burst out laughing, but Mrs. Lecks gravely remarked: "Now I hope this business of cap-settin' is settled an' done with."

"Which it is," said Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne, as she rose to meet the rest of our party as they entered the room.

For several days I could not look upon the dignified and almost courtly Mr. Dusante without laughing internally and wondering what he would think if he knew how, without the slightest provocation on his side, a matrimonial connection with him had been discussed by these good women, and how the matter had been finally settled. I think he would have considered this the most surprising incident in the whole series of his adventures.

On our journey from Chicago to the little country town in the interior of Pennsylvania we made a few stops at points of interest for the sake of Ruth and the Dusante ladies, Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne generously consenting to these delays, although I knew they felt impatient to reach their homes. They were now on most social terms with Mrs. Dusante, and the three chatted together like old friends.

"I asked her if we might call her Emily," said Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne in confidence to me, "an' she said, 'yes,' an' we're goin' to do it. I've all along wanted to, because it seemed to come nat'ral, considerin' we knowed 'em as Emily and Lucille before we set eyes on 'em. But as long as I had that load on my mind about Mrs. Lecks and Mr. Dusante, I couldn't 'Emily' his adopted mother. My feelin's wouldn't ha' stood it. But now it's all right; an' though Emily isn't the woman I expected her to be, Lucille is the very picter of what I thought she was. And as for Emily, I never knowed a nicer-mannered lady, an' more willin' to learn from people that's had experience, than she is."

We arrived at Meadowville early in the afternoon, and when our party alighted from the train we were surprised not to see Mr. Enderton on the platform of the little station. Instead of him, there stood three persons whose appearance amazed and delighted us. They were the red-bearded c.o.xswain and the two sailor men, all in neat new clothes and with their hands raised in maritime salute.

There was a cry of joy. Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne dropped her bag and umbrella, and rushed towards them with outstretched hands. In a moment Mrs.

Lecks, Ruth, and myself joined the group, and greeted warmly our nautical companions of the island.

The Dusante party, when they were made acquainted with the mariners, were almost as much delighted as we were, and Mr. Dusante expressed in cordial words his pleasure in meeting the other members of the party to whom his island had given refuge.

"I am so glad to see you," said Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne, "that I don't know my bonnet from my shoes! But how, in the name of all that's wonderful, did you git here?"

"'T ain't much of a story," said the c.o.xswain, "an' this is just the whole of it. When you left us at 'Frisco we felt pretty downsome, an'

the more that way because we couldn't find no vessel that we cared to s.h.i.+p on; an' then there come to town the agent of the house that owned our brig, and we was paid off for our last v'yage. Then, when we had fitted ourselves out with new togs, we began to think different about this s.h.i.+ppin' on board a merchant vessel, an' gittin' cussed at an'

livin' on hard-tack an' salt prog, an' jus' as like as not the s.h.i.+p springin' a leak an' all hands pumpin' night an' day, an' goin' to Davy Jones after all. An' after talkin' this all over, we was struck hard on the weather bow with a feelin' that it was a blamed sight better--beggin' your pardon, ma'am--to dig garden-beds in nice soft dirt, an' plant peas, an' ketch fish, an' all that kind of sh.o.r.e work, an' eatin' them good things you used to cook for us, Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne, and dancin' hornpipes fur ye, an' tamin' birds when our watch was off.

Wasn't that so, Jim an' Bill?"

"Aye, aye, sir!" said the black-bearded sailor men.

"Then says I, 'Now look here, mates, don't let's go and lark away all this money, but take it an' make a land trip to where Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne lives,' which port I had the name of on a piece of paper which you give me, ma'am."

And here Mrs. Ales.h.i.+ne nodded vigorously, not being willing to interrupt this entrancing story.

"'An' if she's got another garden, an' wants it dug in, an' things planted, an' fish caught, an' any other kind of sh.o.r.e work done, why, we're the men for her; an' we'll sign the papers for as long a v'yage as she likes, an' stick by her in fair weather or foul, bein' good for day work an' night work, an' allus ready to fall in when she pa.s.ses the word.' Ain't that so, Jim and Bill?"

"Aye, aye, sir!" returned the sailor men with sonorous earnestness.